Comic-ing in Japan

Crazy Sunshine was first created over five years ago during my time at university. But only after I came to Japan did it become a fully-fledged webcomic.

Since then, I’ve signed up to Twitter, started a Facebook page and even tested out Google+, as well as streaming live art via Livestream and discussing random junk on the Forum.

Sadly, Crazy Sunshine has lost a large chunk of its readers. Popularity has dramatically decreased during the ORIGINS story arc, despite that a look into each character’s past is exactly what readers wanted. Update days have decreased by over 10,000 unique visitors, which is a giant kick in the nuts for my confidence and morale.

However, the feeling of reading just one positive or excited comment and talking to fans of the comic on the forums hasn’t changed since day 1. It always brightens up my day and fills me with a small sense of accomplishment, and that’s what keeps me going.

With Facebook’s new rules on “pay to promote” and Twitter followers dropping my account like flies, I often wonder why it’s so hard to build up an audience, or keep readers interested in my work.

“Ah, it must be because I am in Japan!” I thought. So I made a small list of pros and cons to see if that really was the case.

Pros:

A doorway – I’m not very secretive with my Japanese experiences. I always post silly photos on Facebook and Twitter or have lengthy rants about the many annoying or funny things Japan gets up to, allowing people to have a peek at the life of a foreigner in Japan. It’s a great way to start conversations and I love answering questions anyone has on the subject of living here.

Influences – Japan, the home of anime, manga and videogames. Everywhere I go, everything I see influences me and improves my ability to draw or have something in common with people here or overseas. I have watched and played things I would never have known about if I stayed in the UK, and wouldn’t have the same relationships that I do now.

Room for expansion – Calm down, hentais, I am not talking about breast expansion. Over here, printed comics are king. Kindle books, digital ebooks, and webcomics are nowhere near as popular – and possibly never will be – as weekly manga releases or physical printed material. If I keep studying Japanese I might even make my own manga, or heck, even get around to translating Crazy Sunshine.

Cons:

Conventions – Part of making a popular webcomic is getting your name out. There is no better way to promoting your comic than attending conventions and being there in person. Sadly, these webcomic conventions only exist in the west, and cost way to much to go out there every time one occurs. If I were to attend Japanese comic conventions, I would need to start working on gateway comics like doujinshi (fan art of other popular works), then work my way up to being original. Oh, and also studying a lot of Japanese.

Time Zones – I update my comic at very strange and inconvenient times. This is because the majority of English speaking readers are awake at that time, despite me being in bed or at work. Japanese time zones are so extreme that it is impossible to build an audience for Livestream, as the times I am awake and not at work, everyone in the west is in bed. Seeing absolutely nobody come into a 5 hour long Livestream session destroys morale, but because of time zones, it cannot be helped.

Expansion or GTFO – As mentioned in the pros list, expansion is also a con. Unless I make printed material, or translate the comic to Japanese, Crazy Sunshine will never have a Japanese following. The majority of Japan cannot speak English, obviously, but there is also some sort of cultural “style barrier” that artists have to deal with over here, too. A western guy drawing anime-like art can be seen as offensive and “fake”, despite the amount of manga and anime that are influenced by western art and cartoons. I have heard many hurtful criticism regarding my art from Japanese friends, and have even been told to “go die u fake sumbitch 外人 basterd” from one individual during a Livestream session.

Delivery – If you are in Japan, chances are you are here for business, work, or university. I highly doubt western artists come to Japan looking for a career in webcomics. If you are, and you succeeded, please let me know how! Anyway, because everything is ten times more expensive than the west, and you need at least a part time job to survive, chances are you won’t have as much free time as the folk back home who can draw for a living, or update 3~5 times a week. Ah, I miss the days living at my parent’s house while looking for a job and pumping out 15 strips a week as much as the next artist, but sadly, those days were gone as soon as I set foot on Japanese soil!

Of course, being in Japan is just one reason why it’s so hard to build an audience. I rarely draw fan art, I only update once a week, my interests are not that exciting and to be honest, I never really get on board with anything that has an insane amount of hype encompassing it, which I guess is why I never sell out, I mean, draw or engage in things that are currently trending for a quick “fan grab”. I just want to be original, but I guess being too original comes at a price.

Once the ORIGINS story arc is over and I return to making gag strips, I would love to hear of methods to getting my name out there and showing more and more people my work!

Thanks for reading – as always, leave some feedback in the comment section below!

Hi Jkun. Yeah, I know I said I never leave comments anywhere, but now I feel like I almost have to. I’ll keep it short: I really like your comic, and since I found it some months ago I am following it constantly. I would be truly sad if you had to quit posting your art, whatever the reason could be. In case you ever make a printed art book or whatever I would love to support you and your hard work. Not because I want to be a apple-polisher, but because I am fond of the comic, the characters and also the stories of their background and past and all the rest around CrazySunshine. I don’t know how to explain, but your site has a great atmosphere to me I am kind of feeling good while being around. Keep going, you make me smile everytime I am around! (Sorry for my amateur english…) One of the 6% outside of America. Martin

I’d think one of the biggest things holding you back from building a following is only being able to update once a week. I understand it takes a lot of time on the side to pump out that much art, but your’s is the only webcomic I follow that doesn’t update more than once a week, aside from Gastrophobia (and as I understand David McGuire does some work in animation with Gastrophobia as a side project, I think?)

Regardless, I found your comic through Hiveworks, I think, a year ago or so, and I’ve consistently kept an eye on it ever since. Keep making new art and I’ll keep following the comic!

And… to expand on that, I think the biggest reason you had a drop in viewers is that the “one update a week” structure applies itself much better to gag-a-day comics than it does to one trying to tell a story. People have trouble paying attention for that long with once a week updates, and I’ll admit I had to go back once or twice to refresh myself on bits of the story in a seven page arc. That’s not very long, but when you’re reading it over 2 months, it’s hard to keep everything fresh!

It was a pretty drastic change from your regular format. I’m not gonna tell you that you shouldn’t have done it, but I think maybe it wasn’t the best idea to include it with your webcomic. Something like this is somewhat suited to be a spin-off from your strip, maybe as a collected book of sorts, but seeing as how you live in Japan and all, that’s obviously not an option for you. Regardless, though, I’m still sticking with you.

Something you may want to consider is the Housepets! format of arcs. Basically include one-off strips and gags in-between arcs as something of a breather. Granted, seeing as how this is a look into the past, using the present-time characters might be kinda jarring (though maybe you have some one-off gags that still fit with the characters as they currently are).

Jo of Nerf NOW!! has pointed out the cons of arcs for normally gag-a-day or mini-arc webcomics. Rather than quote a wall of text I’ll just link to the comic (explanation is at the bottom; hard to miss seeing as it’s the only text on that page): http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/865

Also always remember that regardless of readership no comic ever dies because of lack of popularity. Listening to criticism and making changes isn’t bad but ultimately a comic survives and goes on because its artist wants it to. As long as you’re doing what you like, you never need to really worry about popularity. As long as you’re willing to experiment, time and experience will ultimately improve whatever you work on.

Also also seriously, your art style is in the upper 10% of quality as far as “stuff on the internet” goes. I’d consider anyone not giving constructive criticism and dissing your art style to be jealous or a troll. ;)

One more thought i had — those nasty japs saying nasty thing about your art.. fuck em with an eel! Your style is recognizable as yours (and it’s great). I enjoyed your guest comic in LAWLS very much :)

I don’t know about other people but this comic has always been at the end of my Wednesday comic list since I found it (I save the best for last) I very much enjoy the art and also the story, but I feel the pacing is very slow for a once a week comic. I feel as a adamant reader of webcomics this is not a problem but it might daunt the causal reader. over all don’t be discouraged I’ve seen too much talent go by the way side.

I really enjoy your comic. The style, the art, the gags, but also I enjoyed the longer story arcs (a la Origins). I haven’t read through all the comments, but you can set a time to auto-publish with WordPress/ComicEasel. Not sure if others mentioned. I don’t have solutions for the rest, but a friend of mine also makes a webcomic and only has 350 visitors per month. I have tried to encourage him to do single gag strips, but he wanted to do a long sprawling story. I tried again and again to persuade him to do some shorts until I realised he doesn’t need a huge audience to make him happy. Just the fact that some people love his work is enough.

I don’t know if this helps you, but I am a fan and I’ll hope to keep reading (and recommending) Crazy Sunshine for some time to come. Yours is one of the sites I don’t use advert blockers on because I know you deserve any cash you can get from all your hard work.

Just fyi, Automatic WordPress auto updates do not work with Comicpress, only WordPress blog posts. As a turnaround I schedule posts on Facebook and Tumblr whenever I update beforehand. Currently only G+, Twitter and the Forum require manual updates.

Also, in respect to having it translated, it would be a little more difficult what with this being a comedy/skit comic. By that I mean that you’d have to be careful as the jokes may not always translate smoothly, or may not be culturally relevant.

Hi! I showed up in your livestream the other night :3 I personally found your comic through the Hiveworks network, and I believe that talking with other comic creators and maybe getting them to advertise you on their page will help as well. Your art style is great, and appealing, so it can’t be that. I enjoy the comic, and especially enjoyed this serious origin arc. I enjoy story the most, and development of characters, as well as the idea of some relative continual development. I have as of yet to see a goal or story idea develop in Crazy Sunshine, which is fine, but I would like to see some more serious arcs in the future :)

Oh dude I feel so terrible because I don’t check up as much anymore, but I still love your work! It’s definitely a “it’s not you, it’s me” type of thing, now that I have a real job and all. I’m really sorry that you’ve lost readers, man. That sucks. But what’s important is that you’re telling the stories you want to tell and improving yourself as a creator in the process. It’ll pay off and the people who really care about your world and aren’t in it (just) for the boobs are still here!

The power of Social Media is huge but it’s one of those machines you have to keep cranking and cranking at to get constant results. There’s books out there now that’ll help with how to promote via social media and provide tips to save time doing so. :)

“exactly what readers wanted” Fuck the readers, they don’t know what they want. Write what YOU want.

If you ever want to skype or real talks about mibby how to spruce or make your site more ‘accessible’ you can always hit me up for free advice. :) I hate talking about this shite over email though, UGH I CANNAE MAKE DAH TYPEY WORDS

Jkun, the “origins” arc was very confusing for me and to be honest, entirely unenjoyable. I just did not get what was happening. The delay between updates might have contributed (i forget what happened previously). People are lazy, they wont go back a few pages to make sense of it. After 4th or 5th update that makes no sense and doesn’t tickle the funny bone it’s understandable they might not return.

I write this only to offer my view on why you’re getting less visits. I hope you wont feel offended. I love your style and humor and i intend to keep crazyshunsine in my RSS. Additionally, i think this has nothing to do with living in Japan.

CSCs were awesome! I think they were witty and funny. I remember i was exited to have a little continuity. I did read most of those in quick succession though (after first discovering your comic) so in order to compare i guess i would have to go back to start of ORIGIN and ROOTS and read those in one sitting also (which i plan to do later today).

Now that i’ve looked at the archive, i think i see another possible explanation to the “problem” – ORIGIN is followed immediately with ROOTS (and now INSTALL). This effectively leaves the followers who come for the quick smirk hanging dry. Based on this, CS could no longer be considered a one gag comic. So it’s bound to attract other kind of followers too.

Putting some one page gags between major story arcs would help i think. Also (and i don’t know if it’s feasible for you), if you feel the longer arcs can’t be chopped up into shorter chapters, then how about publishing all the pages for longer arc at the same time? That way we could read it in one sitting and the story would register much better.

I do follow several comics with a long running story (just counted – 28 in fact!). And i find i have similar problem with several of those. But not all. I haven’t spent much time analyzing why tbh. I can say for sure it’s not *just* the delay between pages. I dropped a certain comic after it started updating every day. Instead of more story it only made more comic. And that was frustrating.

As for confusing how… i think i didn’t get a feeling there was a story going on. I could not find continuity from previous page. I can try to make a fair assessment after i go and read it over again.

In rearguards to the sudden drop in views since beginning origins, I have a theory. Viewers are lazy and like everything at once.

What I mean by this is that when you were doing gag strips they were complete little snippets and viewers could stop by each week and get the complete skit. With the longer story arcs, while they are more interesting, viewers get a better (or at least more immediate) experience if they stop by every month or so so they can get three or four pages of the story instead of just one and possible have to back track to check on something they may have missed or forgotten from a few weeks previous.

Also, Origins is taking a decidedly darker turn than the comic usually has. In the past Peppermint is unintentionally causing chaos with her latest invention, Mochi is being antagonized by her more than just rumbly tummy, Candy is either getting stressed or reveling stress on our favorite unlit, and Lacie and Shelbie are in their perpetual love hate(?) relationship. Since we started Origins, Peppermint has been reviled to have been raised with out a mother, Candy has watched her mother and her entire race Explode right before her eyes, and we’re all pretty sure Dr. Spearmint is going to try to turn his daughter into a weapon of war because… reasons. And to come, we’re going to see Shelbie as a top agent in S.U.G.A.R. get reduced to a shadow (and one braincell) of her former self, and Lacie… well to be honest I don’t think anyone has a clue what Lacie is going to do to get her kicked out of hell but its probably going to be something terrible and tear jerking if what we’ve seen so far is any indication.

Origins is not bad. By far its one of the most interesting and brilliant things we’ve seen in Crazy Sunshine! But we are not used to these feels from our beloved gag comic. Your making the feels bro! And the feels is too strong! Once Origins is over and everybody has a chance to catch up, I’m quite certain that more than half to 75% of your readership will return to its usual viewership per post.

You are doing a good job, and amazing job considering your working with a creation that is completely all your own! Getting more of a viewership would be good, and maybe you could consider a little crossover work with some of the other comics on Hiveworks once you finish up Origins, (Go Get a Roomie and U Suck come to mind as prime candidates,) but for now, I’m looking forward to the next chapter, and hoping everything works out for you. :)

I never knew lurkers had these sort of feelings or knew so much about the comic ( I even forget Mochi exists sometimes), it means so much to me!

So, want a spoiler? Okay.

I wanted to make the point of ORIGINS not only a backstory and explanation of each character, but also create a subtle theme of “no matter what happened in the past, being together gives us a brighter future”. By having a fairly dark toned series of comics flourish into gags and light hearted comedy by the time it’s all over, I hope people feel more connected to each character.

For this to have a strong effect, I made the gag strips first so the dark themed storylines would have more impact on readers who already have a feel for the characters and are intrigued by them and their history.

Lastly, as you said, “because reasons”. When I make characters, I try to cover all bases of their personality. Candy needs a reason to be quiet and stoic. Not because “Oh, that’s just what she is like”, more “She’s like that BECAUSE her Mother and race perished at the hands of so and so”.

I’ll probably post some other comments later, as I’m getting into web/non-web manga-ing in a simultaneously very similar and very differnt way to you, and I have some life overlap, so I’m interested in your successes and failures at it.

But RifferKyle’s commentary and your response brought up a point that I think might be a very relevant one that I don’t know if you’ve addressed. You just said outright that you started light, and wanted to give the dark backstory as part of the explanation of why the humor is important, not just gag-a-day.

Being someone who has been watching anime for around 20 years, I’ve seen a lot of comedies go dark. And that’s the thing: When 99 out of 100 comedies go dark, they stay dark. Further, when I see a comedy go dark, with only the rarest exception (Trigun, say), I usually think “Well, there went the fun” and feel somewhat disapointed.

Similarly, I’ve started reading a lot of webcomics that started off fun and gag-a-day. At some point, they start building a plot, and often they spiral into some huge epic. In nearly every case, along the line somewhere I just stop caring—I started reading for the jokes and/or likable gag-ish characters, not a convoluted, dark, epic plot.

So when someone is reading a webcomic that suddenly develops plot and changes tone from light to dark, a lot of us—myself included—are VERY inclined to think “Oh well, it just turned serious. So much for that comic.” I might give one I particularly like a while longer in my RSS feed, but in most cases eventually I’m going to delete it because I just don’t care anymore. Other people, I’m sure, are apt to pull the “stop caring” trigger a lot faster than I am.

Now, the fact that you’ve indicated that the Origins stories are a temporary thing, and you will eventually get back to gags, has kept me reading. And it is mildly entertaining still. But honestly, while I have nothing personally against the emotional end of things, and I would fully encourage you to tell the story you want to, reagardless of whether anybody reads it or not, if that were where you were going to stay with the story, I’d stop reading, too. Not saying I don’t like drama, it’s just that this particular type isn’t my thing.

My point here, in summary, is that you’ve essentially not only changed your target audience—even if it’s only temporary–you’ve done so in a way that many other comics have when they’ve really, really burned their readership, so people are apt to give up pretty quickly if they feel that’s where things are headed.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this. Again, I’d strongly encourage you to tell exactly the story you want to. I’m just saying that I would guess that explains a lot of the readership loss.

I am kind of confused with the whole “once you go dark you never go back” thing.

It was never my intention to be a “this is how CS is now, like it or get lost” type of comic. There are plenty of cute moments scattered throughout the first two chapters – and that’s just it, the biggest chunk of the story hasn’t even happened yet.

Let’s look at the whole scope of the project. We’ve only touched on Candy and Peppermint, and honestly, what made those two funny in the gag strips? Lacie trolling them both, Shelbie wrecking Peppermint’s inventions and causing Candy headaches, and Daifuku/Mochi being their own double act. Once those guys are back in, you can bet it’s not gonna be as “dark” as people think it’s heading.

Comedy doesn’t just “happen” when a certain character or situation is present, though. It requires synergy, buildup and relationships between characters to pull off. WHY does Lacie think she can get away with all the stuff she does? HOW is Shelbie such an idiot? WHY does Candy have to protect Peppermint, despite Peppermint sometimes unknowingly making devices that could wipe out the entire planet? I am not going to throw away these personalities that I developed for the sake of telling a “dark” story, I am telling a “dark” story so these relationships CAN happen in the future.

If readers want to skip it all, fair enough! I don’t mind. The comedy will come seeping back in once more characters are introduced and synergy is created between them – and those readers will miss out. If they come back after I return to gag strips and ask questions that were answered during the story arc, I’ll just rolls my eyes and direct them to the chapter they were revealed in. Again, they will be missing out.

Some argue I should have started with this story and then turned to comedy. Well, if I did that I would have lost pretty much my entire audience who signed up for a long-term comic strip. I have made this incredibly clear in the past that these story arcs, along with every other Crazy Sunshine Chronicles, are temporary. Nobody seemed to mind about Daifuku’s arc, and that shit was dark as hell with no gags until the end.

I’m not voicing any personal opinion about what you should or shouldn’t do in terms of dark/light balance, or what I think you were trying to achieve. And I’m certainly not claiming that in your specific case the dark, long-form-story shift is going to “stick”—several times you’ve explicitly said that it won’t, in fact.

What I was trying to analyze is what the large number of people who were reading before and apparently are not now may have been thinking when they stopped. Many, I’m guessing, had the knee-jerk reaction that has been developed over the years by reading webcomics that start as gag-a-day strips and eventually spiral into sprawling, serious, dramatic epics. Which is a different “market”, with different fans in many cases.

I gave the anime examples because they are other representitive examples that have trained people fond of anime/manga style things to have a reflexive reaction to comedies that take a serious turn—they very rarely go back to being comedies. I know when I see a comedy hit a serious twist (usually around the split in the middle of a two-season show), I assume that I’m not going to get any laughs out of the subsequent episodes, and I’m rarely wrong.

Again, I’m not saying that is true of yours. It apparently isn’t. I’m not even saying it’s a bad thing—Trigun, for example, is a fantastic show, and it goes from slapstick to brutal. Angel Beats is very popular, too, and oscilates wildly back and forth.

And I’m not saying that the more developed backstory to build the characthers the jokes bounce off of isn’t a perfectly legitimate thing to do. I actually much prefer comedies, even slapstick romps, that have a coherent, solid world and functional characters.

All I was trying to explain is that a lot of people might well have seen the development of a long-form, serious story arc and automatically assumed that YOUR comic was going the same route as so many others—somewhere entirely different than where it began, never to return.

Keep in mind also that, even if you tell people over and over in the comments what you’re doing, a lot of people (I’d wager the large majority) just don’t read that. They look at the strip, and that’s it.

None of this is intended as any sort of indictment of what you’ve chosen to do here—it’s an interesting way to approach it, and I’d encourage you to go all-in and stick to it even if only ten people were left reading it and loving it. I’m just analyzing what I think may have happened behind those statistics you see when you look at server logs, based on my own psychology and personal experience—when I think of, as a casual reader, what “loses me”.

Forgive me if you’ve already mentioned this, but just to mention, one of the extremely rare anime series that manages to include dark drama while overall remaining mainly comedy, and in fact does something very similar to what you are going for—dark backstory for upbeat, silly characters—is Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. A show I love, I might add.

I’m scratching my head a bit about the “Origins” arc. From what I gather, it was supposed to do a bit of backstory on each of the characters of the comic. However, I did not see anything about Lacie, or Shelbie. I do agree with others that I tend not to frequent comics that update weekly or worse. I’ve tried Livestream, but it appears to attract other webcomic artists, and others that “are above the rest of us”. I’m just a simple admirer of the comic, and don’t delve into the nooks and crannies of each story. I guess I could sum it up as “I just don’t feel welcome” when I follow a Livestream feed. Not just your comic, but others, too.

I stumbled upon the comic a few months ago and ever since I’ve been a rapt fan. Even when you tear at my heart you still weave a story to keep people attention. Which I might say is unusual for a comic that is not a mainly story-arc type. It is the sign of a great comic and even greater artist.

I try to keep mini arcs to 15~ pages for the very purpose of holding attention and give readers a definite time frame of when to come back and read them in bulk or read them each week. I try to include a fair chunk of what is going on every week (aside from a couple of filler weeks like a single page explosion because I was in hospital and had no time to draw, woops), which is why I feel there is a balance of the story progressing at a fairly comfortable speed, despite only being updated weekly.

You make a good point about conventions. Setting up a booth at some comes (with some merch to sell) is a huge part of promoting comics, far more valuable than facebook’s greedy ad business or the like. Everyone only wishes they could harness the power of word-of-mouth, but getting yourself to cons is a big part.

A positive idea that a fellow commenter makes is translating your comic into other languages, if that’s possible.

About expanding to Japanese audiences…how receptive are they to webcomic-style color comics? Would you not be taken seriously unless you adopted the pen-and-ink, toner-and-paper format of traditional manga? I prefer your lush colors and style, but then again, I’m part of an audience that likes webcomics as much as manga.

I have been invited to a few conventions, but in my case the problem is money AND time off. My workplace is ruthless with people taking time off and makes them take holiday (paid leave) instead of sick leave.

There are many Japanese artists who like my lines, not so much my colouring. I know I am a bad at it and all my stuff looks flat at the moment, but my lines seem to be what attracts them as they aren’t rough and sketchy.

I want to do this, I even HAVE T-shirt designs and round pin designs. But I don’t know anything about opening a store or asking to be affiliated with current stores. Two comic communities I ask never reply to me so I just gave up until I meet people who actually want to help me set one up.

My recommendation with this would be to talk to the other Hiveworks artists (personally recommend either Erica Moen or David Willis, as both have got back to me in the past when I have had questions about various things). The major issue I can see about you managing merch yourself would be the issue of shipping, as I imagine it will be fairly pricy to ship from Japan to NA/Europe.

I am a fairly new reader (joined during the Origins arc), and I did not know you livestreamed, How do you usually advertise the details of when you are livestreaming? And do you often plan it in advance or just as a spur of the moment thing?

I promote LS via 5 social media options and even sit in the channel and wait for people to turn up. Usually every week 3-4 times, but always at bad times for the western readers (3-4am) and midnight for the EU. Its the only time I am awake and not at work, sadly.

I think you are overestimating the importance of conventions. I really doubt that more than 5% of webcomic readers actually attend conventions on a regular basis, let alone are actually introduced to webcomics at conventions. I think it’s as simple as the fact that it’s much easier to share a gag comic with friends and internet strangers than it is to share a single page of a continuous storyline.

Yeah, this is true. The problem is due to the diversity and unique traits of each character, a lot of readers kept asking complex and repetitive questions about them, which I know an answer isn’t needed for a freakin’ GAG comic, but I still wanted to give an insight into why each character exists.

Maybe shoulda done a simple gag page per character in hindsight, though right.

This is some insight into life as a webcomicker in Japan. Though, you have at least met some supportive people, right? Or at least, indifferent ones. I guess by now, I shouldn’t be too surprised at hearing that a western guy liking anime seems offensive… We have people here who hate the anime style all the same. But regardless, there have been a lot of trials for you and I hope that they get easier for you to bear with…

I think you’ll find that people will be excited about Crazy Sunshine again soon enough. You showed that you put thought into your characters’ histories and I think getting that out was still necessary.

In theory it sounds good but, according to analytics 94% of readers are American or Canadian. I don’t think all that effort for hosting multiple versions of the comic and site are worth expanding on 6% without knowing how far it’ll spread among those countries. Sounds like a big gamble, what do you think?

Unless there’s some cool guy that would do it for a hobby, yes, sadly. :(

Well, the translating stuff is risky, before taking it you should think about the possibilities of spreading the word through the people. I already told you, i told some people about your work, but only 1 friend that knows english reads it. :/ my other friends just speak spanish and a little english, no more…

Maybe checking with the scanlations groups online may be a good way to go about getting your stuff translated for free. I know there are many scanlators out there that exclusively translate RAWs into non-English languages, and I’m sure if you looked around you’d find some people that would be willing to help you out, if not atleast give you a direction to go on.